What is the National Death Index (NDI), and how is it used in cancer registries?

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Multiple Choice

What is the National Death Index (NDI), and how is it used in cancer registries?

The National Death Index is a centralized mortality database maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics that gathers death information from state vital statistics offices (and related sources) to determine whether a person has died and, if so, the date of death (and, when available, cause of death). In cancer registries, it is used for follow-up to validate and update the vital status of cases, providing accurate death dates that enable reliable survival analyses and more complete case ascertainment when active follow-up is incomplete. It is not a cancer registry software, not a database of cancer incidence, and it does not record disease progression.

The National Death Index is a centralized mortality database maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics that gathers death information from state vital statistics offices (and related sources) to determine whether a person has died and, if so, the date of death (and, when available, cause of death). In cancer registries, it is used for follow-up to validate and update the vital status of cases, providing accurate death dates that enable reliable survival analyses and more complete case ascertainment when active follow-up is incomplete. It is not a cancer registry software, not a database of cancer incidence, and it does not record disease progression.

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